I love Lightroom.  I hope to love it more when version 3 comes out because I have a problem in my DAM management since moving over from Iview.  I did not upgrade to EM2 because I was tired of flipping forth b/w two programs and iview no longer worked for me with my upgrade to Windows 7.  (issue with Quicktime versions after 7.5.  QT 7.5 not compatible with W7 and latest QT not compatible with Iview)  So I moved everything into LR Catalogs and coverted my collections to keywords.  Now I struggle.  I have my catalogs divided into Weddings, Jobs, and Image Bank.  Weddings works alright, because it is rare that I need to access it except for portfolio changes.  Jobs if full of paid work that is not weddings and I have two catalogs One prior to 2005 and one 2006-today (90k images).  Then I have Image Bank which is personal work but also includes potential stock.  (40k images).  In Iview with the 2gb catalog limit, I had divided it smaller and it worked ok because I could search across catalogs, have several open at once and create new catalog for certain projects that spanned several different archives.  With LR this is not the case so I created catalogs that spanned larger time frames, but I find even with 8gb of ram (LR set for 2gb max) and quad core processing, those catalogs are clunky and slow.  So DAM-wise I'm stuck. LR seems to constantly want to reproduce previews as you scroll through 100s of images.

 Is the LR EM combo the answer to managing and searching large libraries of images?

What is a DAM strategy for using LR and having images that are cross-purposed in 2 different catalogs?  (ie I have some shots in my "Jobs" Catalog that also need to be part of my "Image Bank" catalog)

Any thoughts appreciated.

Oliver.

I intitially thought I was going to circumvent issues with catalogue size by starting a new catalogue every year.  However, I have maxed my 2007 catalogue already using large built in previews.  So now I thought I could further separate catalogues by job type.  (i.e. I'll have a 2007 Portrait Catalogue, 2007 Corporate, 2007 Stock, 2007 Weddings)  However, this creates problem if I want to keep one bucket for DRVs.  As I create DRV's I dump them into that sequential bucket and then go into IVMP to update the folder and it, of course, finds images that live in the other catalogues as well.  Is it DAM smart to create separate DRV buckets for each catalogue?

I know in the book Peter has a DRV catalogue that holds all of those images, but I haven't found that that works well for me and the way I have to go back and find images for clients.

Any thoughts on how to streamline this?  Should I try on creating large previews for higher rated images?

Oliver

Hello,

Any suggestions on how to archive client slideshow that aren't recognized by iview?  With the finished ISO image file these folders tend to be about 1gb or so.  All of the other client work gets separated into the raw and deriviative buckets - except web galleries which go into their own folder and backup.  I was toying with keeping the slideshow with the raw files from the shoot.  It would be invisible to the catlogue but I would know that if client x files reside in location /raw_000 then that is where I will find their slideshow.  This feels counter- intuitive as it really is a derivative file.  I can't keep it with the derivatives from that client because I make the slideshow from a straight batch from the raw files and then the batch files are tossed with the knowledge that if  I ever have to rebuild the show I can make it from a straight batch.  I suppose I could create a slideshow bucket structure by date and keep this outside of the catalogue and then find the slideshow by checking the shoot date in the client files in the catalogue...

Any thoughts on this from an archiving perspective?

Thanks,

Oliver.

Well I am having the same issue.

I open a dng in ACR and the adjustments are applied, yet when I look at the DNG in IVMP 3 it does not show the preview with adjustments, despite having created a second set of DNG's, and having tried re-importing the files and re-building them.  I have tried using the built in thumbnail and having ivmp create a full screen preview.  How do these two preferences affect each other - do they co-operate or do they fight?  Is it one or the other?

Any input appreciated,

Oliver.

Can anyone help me by telling me how to bring all of my keywords from one iview mediapro 3 catalogue over to a new media pro 3 catalogue?  I am keeping a separate catalogue for all of my jobs from a couple of years ago and don't relish the thought of re-entering all of my keywords...

Oliver.

Thanks Peter.

I understand from your book that whether the keyword is under "keywords" or "people" in bridge it gets written into the metadata in the same way.  Do you use the "people", "places" categories or do you just put everything in keywords and then delete those sets or keywords as they get old or obsolete?

Oliver.

Any thoughts on whether to enter subject names in keyword set or the people set in either bridge or iview?  Are there any file management issues with using one over the other?

Oliver.

Anyone know if there is a way to alphabetize catalogue sets in Iview Media Pro 3?  I am using catalogue set to replace my directory structure as I move into the non-content driven bucket system but have found that when I create my catalogue sets, the jobs come up in the order I entered them - not alphabetically. 

Many thanks,

Oliver.

Thanks John.  That should work great.  I didn't know that iview allowed you to drag and drop from it.

Oliver.

Any thoughts on the best helper program to burn client cds with iview media pro 3?  I don't like the windows xp burning program as I have had issues with it in the past.  I tried to setup roxio emc7 as a helper and it just jammed right up.

Anybody had success with other prgrams?

Oliver.

One of the issues I am having is finding non-image files related to my derivative buckets.  I make a slideshow or a cd label and it goes into a derivative bucket in the sub-folder for that client.  If that job becomes split it becomes time consuming to find where the slideshow or other product for that client is stored because there are no visible references outside of the catalogue. If I am opening my slideshow program and it has lost the path to a file again, there is no intuitive way to find where that file may be except to open up the catalogue and find a virtual set with that client.  Any way to see non-image files in iview 3?

Oliver.

Thanks Dan,

In that way it is critical that your cataloguing software be able to see every possible file type that you may deliver to a client in the event that a year down the road a client needs a second copy of your product.  In my case that would be a slideshow created with Proshow and images tweaked in Photoshop.  My cataloguing software needs to be able to burn a disc from a virtual set otherwise I am stuck going through a bunch of different directories hunting for DRV files in to add to that disc.  It's the mindset that's killing me.  Letting go of being able to open up a directory in explorer and quickly find what I need to give to the client.  I know this can only work so long and I am determined to get the catalogue system working so thank you all for your input.

Oliver.

I am having a similar issue with my derivative workflow/cataloguing.  With my wedding clients, I find that I am making derivative products that are increasingly widely spread over different derivative buckets.  When it comes time to burn these files to a disc for the client, I am finding there is no intuitive way outside the catalogue to find all of the files for that client except by searching through different DRV buckets.  While this is not too difficult with current clients, I can see that this might become challenging and frustrating with clients from 2 or months back. 

I guess keeping everything in the Working folder until the job is totally finished would work as has been suggested.  I just worry that 6 months later I'll end up making christmas cards or something and that derivative file will be saved in a bucket in a bucket that can't be related to the actual job in any other way than the cataloguing software.  Is that the point? Any other thoughts?

Oliver.

Peter,

That is correct.  B&W and Colour versions of the same files.  So I end up with DNG's in my raw buckets and a mixture of colour and B&W file conversions as a delivery group in my DVR buckets.

Would you catalogue all of this? 

Oliver.

Thanks Peter,

I like the idea of making B&W's in ACR as you mention in your book, but that doesn't work if the client wants to see the image in both colour and B&W.  I will start shooting fewer jpegs as I get more cards.  I had quite a bit of storage until I upgraded my cameras and suddenly that storage isn't really worth all that much.  Luckily card prices seem to drop as rapidly as everything else...

Oliver